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Pure Pulp: Contemporary Artists Working in Paper at Dieu Donné

The Triumph of Night (detail), Richard Tuttle, 2009

Exhibition Dates:

June 9 to August 5, 2016

Dieu Donné is a papermaking studio that opened in 1976 to "explore the untapped potential of hand papermaking as an art medium." They work closely with artists, often in residencies, to explore innovative works of art. Pure Pulp includes artwork created by 20 artists in the Dieu Donné studio. All pieces in the exhibit are made of pulp, and the artists were all participants in Dieu Donné's residency program in the last 15 years.

Most of the show’s artists work in other media and used the residency at Dieu Donné to enrich their practice. For some, the collaboration with the studio’s papermaker translated enduring themes and aesthetic into new material. Sculptor Ursula Von Rydingsvard, for example, maintained the dark organicism of her monumental works in cedar and graphite. For the untitled works in the show, she laid black pigment on linen and embedded scraps of her own textiles in extruded deckled edges to create the first two-dimensional works she has ever exhibited. Other artists took the opportunity to venture into new territory. Do Ho Suh departed from large-scale sculptural installation with his “thread drawings.” For Blueprint (2013) and Staircase (2013), he stitched thread into soluble gelatin laid onto a freshly pulled sheet of cotton paper pulp, then dissolved the gelatin in a mist of water and bound the threads to the pulp fibers to create a gestural line shaped by the water current and the placement of his hand.